A Cat of Silvery Hue

XI

Kleetos gulped, despite himself, then said, “If you mean to murder me, I would ask a few moments to pray for the forgiveness of my sins.”

Bill’s answering smile looked sincere, and his voice was as smooth as warm honey. “Murder you? Why, lad, I would never condone or perpetrate such a crime. After all, are not we both noblemen of the Confederation, even though you be Ehleen and I Kindred?”

Turning to Hohguhn and extending the hilt of the dirk, he snapped, “Lieutenant, loose this gentleman immediately! Find him a horse and bring me his sword.”

At the same time, Bili mindspoke, “You treacherous, boy-bugging swine of an Ehleen whoreson! For the thousandth part of a silver thrahkmeh, I’d have your balls out and your yard off and then bugger you with your own prick!”

Satisfied that the prisoner, like so many pure-blood or near-pure-blood Ehleenee, lacked the mindspeak talents hereditary to Horseclans Kindred, Bili took the limping boy’s arm and gently led him over to give him a drink of the powerful brandy-wine-water mixture in his own bottle.

To have called Kleetos stunned would have been a gross understatement. He had expected death at the very least. Had steeled himself to accept it with the stoicism and courage shown by the Vawn Kindred—men, women, children, even babes—he had so lately seen tortured, raped, butchered by his uncle and cousins and their rabid followers. He had expected any suffering, any humiliation. But here he was being treated courteously by a tall, blue-eyed pagan who, nonetheless, bore himself like a true gentleman of pure Ehleen. antecedents. Kleetos’ naive mind reeled.

While his “guest” sipped the strong restorative, Bili ranged out his mindspeak in search of the High Lord. He had never before tried real farspeak, but he did know Milo’s mind, and after a few moments Milo responded.

When Bili had explained the situation and his intentions, he could almost hear Milo’s dry chuckle. “Bili, you amaze me a little more with each passing day. Yes, it’s a good plan, and his information could well be valuable to us. Keep the puppy by you in camp, feed him a good dinner, treat him to a wash and some fresh clothing. And tell him you’ve sent for the ahrkeethoheeks’ own physician to see to his hurts. Master Ahlee and Bard Klairuhnz will join you when the shoat be well cosseted.”

By the time they had consumed a finer meal than Kleetos .had tasted in many a long week, they were on a first-name basis, and Kleetos was reflecting that captivity might have very definite advantages, especially could he succeed in seducing his strong, handsome captor, whom he was already calling “Sweet Bili.”

As for “Sweet Bili,” the femininity of his young prisoner, which became more pronounced and overt with every passing minute and cup of wine, set his teeth on edge. Although he was aware that sexual relationships between men were not only an accepted and usual practice amongst the noble Ehleen families, but were not even considered dishonorable so long as the men also wed women and produced legitimate offspring, Bili was personally repelled by the entire’concept. He hoped that he could prevent his deepening disgust and his basic dislike for this precious, now lisping creature from being mirrored in his face and his conduct.

After Milo, in his disguise as Klairuhnz, the traveling bard, had sung a few verses of the War Song of Clan Morguhn, an archaic Ehleen love song and a humorous Freefighter ballad, Kleetos was approached by the physician, Master Ahlee, his snowy robes billowing about him.

Kleetos stared in unabashed fascination at the man now seating himself before him. He had heard of such men, of course, but had never actually seen one. Hands and face and scar-ridged, hairless scalp, all were the dark, dusky brown of an old saddle, though the palms were a startling pink. One of those pink-palmed hands disappeared into a fold in the white robes and emerged holding a polished crystal globe suspended from a thin golden chain. Grasping the ends of the chain, he allowed the spinning globe to dangle before Kleetos’ eyes.

His deep, infinitely soothing voice crooned, “Look, young sir, look at the ball. See the light within the ball? Is not the light beautiful? Fix your eyes on the light, young sir. Become one with the beautiful light. Let yourself sink into the light …”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the young rebel did just that, and, when he was in full trance state, the physician yielded his place to the High Lord, at the same time drawing a tablet and a case of ink and quills from beneath his robes in preparation for noting and sketching whatever the prisoner revealed.

When Kleetos “awakened,” he could feel bandages swathing his face and head. But this was not what utterly horrified him. “But … but what does this mean, Sweet Bili?” he demanded, raising his fettered wrists and clanking the chain, which joined them.

Bili stared at him as he might have at some loathsome insect wriggling on a pinpoint. The chill of his voice matched the blue ice of his eyes. “It means, you … you thing, that at dawn you and our wounded will commence a journey back to my duchy; they will ride, you will have a choice of walking or being dragged behind the horse you’ll be roped to, for you deserve nothing better. When you arrive in Morguhnpolis, you will be delivered to my city prison, where my Master Bahrtuhn will have his deepest, dankest, darkest, slimiest cell waiting for you. When your city falls, those nobles and priests who are of Morguhn will be slowly whipped to death, crucified or impaled, depending upon their ranks and the enormity of their offenses.

“What your thoheeks does with you and your like will be his decision—though I will recommend against impalement in your case, since you might enjoy it, at least at first.”

Kleetos burst out, “Thoheeks Vawn is dead! I saw his body, what was left of it.”

Bili smiled grimly. “There be a new Thoheeks Vawn, now. He is Hwahltuh, Chief of Sanderz, and I would that he could be here this evening, but he and his clansmen are presently scouting out the environs of Vawnpolis.”

“Ha! Now I know you lie, heathen,” scoffed Kleetos. “There be no House of Sanderz. And besides, we have disbanded the Council of Threes, which means that there is no one to approve an heir. And if there were, there’d be no heir to approve.” His harsh laugh bore a sinister undertone.

“You’d not know the Clan Sanderz, rebel,” Bili agreed. “They’ve been less than six moons in the Confederation, after riding and fighting their way east from the Sea of Grass.”

“Wild Horseclansmen, heathen?” inquired Kleetos. “Who are you trying to impress with your lies? Me? Why even I know that new-come barbarians are given freshly conquered lands. But only the High Lord—or rather that cursed Undying sorcerer who has usurped the title—can make such a gift, anyway.”

“Just so, rebel dog,” Bili smiled. “I myself witnessed the ceremony of investiture, which was held at Morguhnpolia rather than the capital. As for the state of the land, Vawn will be as a freshly conquered principality when we’ve flushed all you death worshipers out of it. And, as for sorcery, the High Lord just used it to read your mind.”

“Which,” put in Milo, “was like swimming through a sewer! I have lived near a millennium, but I have never before encountered such depravity in one so young. I must confess, I had long thought that the last Ehleen High Lord, Demetrios Treeah-Pohtohmas, represented the absolute nadir of human compassion, but I think that your vast amusement and completely unnatural satisfactions in the pointless tortures and humiliations of helpless, harmless men, women and children who happened to be in your power would have shocked Demetrios at his worst.”

In the wake of the calamitous attack, the van and flank guards were reinforced to double strength, so that scouting or campsite activities would not again unduly weaken them. And the nobles and troopers now rode fully armed from commencement to end of each day’s march, regardless of heat, discomfort or weariness.

During all of the next, long day, Milo and Aldora made it a point to ride with the forward elements of the column, being especially wary during the late-afternoon hour when the previous ambush had occurred. But the day and march were uneventful, as was the heavily guarded camp through all the night. It was not until three hours after sunrise that the next blow was struck.

With the light of false dawn, the vanguard contingent had clattered out of camp, most of the nobles and their Freefighters with the flankers taking the road a bare half-hour later. Then had the long, serried ranks of infantry set hide-shod feet to the measured beat of the marching drums, thankful that but two days’ march separated them from Vawnpolis, cursing the muddy morass which last night’s rain had made of the hoof-churned road as vociferously as had they cursed yesterday’s dust.

At their departure, the exodus of the wagons of supplies and equipment commenced. While officers’ and nobles’ servants struck tents and loaded baggage, apprentice sanitarians directed squads of sappers in filling latrines and offal pits. Fires were extinguished and teams hitched and the rearguard kahtahfrahktoee and lancers impatiently sat stamping horses on the fringes of the bustle. Though all mounted and accoutered for the road, they had not yet assembled in marching order but were gathered in small groups, chatting, jesting, spitting, watching the beehive of activities within the perimeters of the soon to be abandoned campsite.

Because his superior officer, Sub-strahteegos Arnos Tchainee, lay ill of a fever in one of the medical wagons now lumbering along the Vawnpolis road, Captain Gaib Linstahk found himself in nominal command of the entire squadron of kahtahfrahktoee as well as of the two troops of lancers trickling out in ones and twos on the flanks of the slowly departing baggage train Nor were these the least of his problems, for, as the Undying High Lady Aldora was traveling this day in her huge, luxurious yurt, he had to deal with the frequently insubordinate commander of her mounted bodyguard, as well as with threescore country noblemen, all surly and irascible at being placed in the rear and not the van.

Trailed by his bugler, the squadron colors and a couple of supernumerary junior noncoms, Gaib was leading his charger, which appeared on the verge of throwing a shoe, toward a still-unpacked traveling forge, his lips moving in curses at wellbred bumpkins who carried their feelings ill balanced on their armguards and gave not one damn for his military rank, rendering him what little deference they did only because he was heir to a Kindred vahrohnos.

A mindspoken warning from one of the lancer noncoms caused him to glance back the way they had come yesterday, at the body of mounted men now approaching, a bedraggled-looking lot from what he could see of them. More volunteer irregulars from Morguhn and other duchies, no doubt, though in a larger contingent than usual. And doubtless commanded by still another noble arsehole, who’d marched them all through the rainy night, and—and then he heard the first shouts of fear and alarm, saw the first flight of shafted death arcing upward from the nearest cover, heard—or thought he heard—that never-to-be-forgotten, ominous hissing hum.

Swinging up on his mount, loose shoe or no loose shoe, he roared, “Bugler, sound To the Colors’!” Then he snapped, “Follow me!” to the color bearer and noncoms. Adding, when he realized they had not seen what he had, “Sun and Wind, lower your visors and clear your steel; we’re under attack!”

Promising himself to have that thrice-damned fool of a Danos hanged, Vahrohneeskos Drehkos presented his twelve-foot lance and clapped heels to his charger, shouting a snarled, “Charge, damn it, chargel The goddam archers have loosed too soon!”

Up the road which the camp had straddled they surged, all winking lancepoints and flashing blades, fanning out as the roadsides became clear enough to strike on a broader front Drehkos had schooled them well.

All the miserable night they had hidden in a steep, brush-grown ravine, shivering and hungry, but trusting utterly in their valiant commander. With the departure of most of the invaders and the concurrent cessation of roving patrols, the archers and dartmen had padded forth, under command of Senior Sergeant Danos, bound for predetermined positions within range of the invader camp and with strict orders to hold their shaft until the van of the attack column was abreast of them, that the shock of the charge might strike upon the very heels of the shock of the arrowstorm.

Bracing his buttocks against the high, strong cantle of his war kak and taking a fresh grip on the ashwood shaft of his lance, Drehkos felt an arrow strike the backplate of his cuirass and heard behind him the scream of a horse, saw the kahtahfrahktoee archers—fortunately but a bare handful of the bastards!—loose a second, then a third volley before wheeling their mounts and trying to force a way through the boiling confusion of the camp to where their colors waved and a bugle pealed the call, over and over.

Drehkos’ own precipitate archers still were loosing into the chaotic mess the camp had become, but he knew that they could not long continue to so cover his advance. Not only would they run the risk of cutting down his riders, but with resources being husbanded toward the eventual defense of the city, arrows and darts were in short supply and had been allotted in limited quantities; just enough to take out most of the mounted escort so that the bulk of the forces might devote their efforts not to fighting but to packing the mules they were trailing and any captured animals with such supplies as might be easily available and firing anything they could not take with them, ere they faded back into the sheltering hills.

The maneuver outlined in the High Lady’s book had been patterned for use in flatter, more heavily wooded country, but Drehkos’ quick, flexible mind had immediately visualized a way to adapt it to the somewhat different conditions. The advance of the striking force should have been concealed by forest or fold of ground, but since none was available within practical range of the objective, and since latecomers had been hastening to join the army since first it entered Vawn, Komees Hari’s brother had decided to gamble on simply riding up the road, bold as brass, until he reached striking distance.

And it would’ve worked, too, he thought, as his big spotted stallion bore him nearer and nearer to the line’ of heavily arrried nobles drawing up to take the brunt of his charge. Fighting armored, determined men differed radically from riding down disorganized and/or dismounted survivors of an arrow rain. He gritted his teeth, thinking, I’ll lose men today, maybe as many as I lost day before yesterday. As the war cries commenced to sound both behind and before, Drehkos roared out his own, original, perhaps, but very very feeling.

“Oh, goddam you, Danos! Damn you, damn you, DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU!”

Danos had not been happy of late, despite his promotion to senior sergeant. Lord Drehkos’ complete regimentation of all the inhabitants of Vawnpolis had made Danos’ sex life highly dangerous, while the virtual eradication of the dog packs and feral cats and the deep inroads recently made on the rat population had made disposal of his few victims’ bodies a chancy business at best. And that was while he still was in the city, before he had “volunteered” for this insane and uncomfortable method of slow suicide.

Nor would he have come riding out on this madness but for the certain knowledge that to remain behind was to place himself in undesired proximity to Lord Myros, Lord Drehkos’ deputy for the fortifications. And such was simply not to be borne!

Though the dark, gray-haired, brooding vahrohnos had seldom spoken to him, and then only in line of duty, since Lord Drehkos had literally dragged him from the gutter and restored him to the thin ranks of the gentry, yet Danos feared Myros instinctively, as he would fear a viper. And he did not even know why. Unless … unless it was those eyes.

Black, they were, the blackest that ever Danos had seen, yet with a shiny, shimmering bluish glint like chunks of mountain coal. But Danos could see something else lurking behind those eyes, sometimes peering slyly from their depths, and it was that . . . that indefinable menace which set Danos’ skin prickling. And when it peeked out in Danos’ presence, while the debased nobleman bared his unnaturally white teeth in one of his mirthless grimaces, then Da^nos knew terror. He was convinced that that nameless thing harboring behind those eyes could see to the very depths of his soul, knew his every misdeed and was waiting but a favored time and place to reveal all—or … And then Danos would tremble like a trapped rabbit, his mind unable to retain the thought of what horrors the loathsome Lord Myros and the satanic being which dwelt within him might demand in payment for continued silence.

So he had ridden out with Lord Drehkos, who had bluntly praised his unswerving loyalty and dauntless courage, then placed him in command of the archers. At least they had been eating more and better since leaving the city, that much Danos could say in truth, what with game and wandering livestock and supplies from several small parties who had ridden in to join the army only to be bushwhacked by Drehkos’ scouts. Of course, conscientious Lord Drehkos always insisted that the bulk of any nonperishables be packed to the city, but still the raiders ate well and frequently.

Furthermore, and to Danes’ vast relief, the lord saw to it that the lightly armored archers and dartmen were called upon to do no hand-to-hand combat, covering their withdrawal if necessary with his mounted irregulars. So even the perpetual grousers had to admit that things were not as bad as they might have been.

But none of the blessings could do aught to relieve Danos’ principal problem. During those few short halcyon weeks when he had been able to indulge his tastes on a victim every night, his body had become accustomed to the regular, glorious release. Now it was all that he could do on far too many nights to prevent Satan from beguiling his hands into pollution of his own flesh. He had so far resisted all the Evil One’s blandishments—God be praised—but the need for release was becoming more and more pressing with each succeeding day.

That was why, when from his hiding place he first sighted a woman—slender and lovely, with long, black hair—he thought his head would surely burst of the blood thundering in it, and he was not even aware of having released his whistling signal shaft until he saw men going down in the camp and the tumult swelled even louder than the roaring in his ears. If he was aware that he had just dashed Lord Drehkos’ careful plans, it was of less moment to him than the urgency of his drive to have that woman—to see her blood, taste its warm saltiness; to hear her pleas, screams, whimpers and, finally, rattling gasps as the life left her torn body. Uncontrollable shudders shook his body so strongly that he dropped his bow and nearly fell on his face when he bent to retrieve it.

But with it once more in his hand, he pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked, drew, loosed; then another, nock, draw, loose, one after another, mechanically, almost unaware of his actions, mind floating in a daydream of blood and female flesh. But he was a master archer and accustomed to the stalk and the chase and to dropping faster and smaller and far more elusive targets than the men and horses less than a hundred yards distant. His years of training and experience took over, aiming and allowing for wind, distance and movements of the slow quarries. And every shaft thudded home in flesh.

Then his questing hand could find no more arrows. Carefully he laid aside his bow and, smiling, drew his short, heavy sword. At a fast trot, he set out toward the milling turmoil of the campsite, swinging wide to avoid the cavalry engagement broiling on his right. And the other archers and dartmen drew their own steel and followed him, not for love of him as they would have followed Lord Drehkos, but simply because he was their assigned leader and seemed to know what he was doing.

But once within the corpse-littered camp, Danos halted. His sword dangling, he stood dumfounded, wondering if all had been but a dream born of wishful thinking. Not only could he spy no woman, but even that huge wagon was nowhere to be seen. The space he could have sworn that wagon had occupied held only a dead horse archer and a swaying, badly wounded horse.

“Ayaaargh!” The shout burst almost in Danos’ ear, and only his instinctive flinch kept the cook’s long iron spit from the archer’s unarmored body. But the cook was middle-aged, stout and clumsy, and before he could stop his forward rush, Danos had recovered enough to jam his shortsword to the very guard into the fat, bulging belly. Eyes bugging, mouth opening and closing and opening like a beached sunfish, the man dropped his makeshift weapon and clapped both hands to the fatal wound so closely that when Danos withdrew his steel, the sharp edges gashed palms and fingers to the bone. He just stood there, staring down at his mangled hands, which could not seem to keep the white-and-red-and-purple-pink coils of gut where they belonged.

Danos had no time to finish the cook, for he was fully occupied in ducking the furious swings of a big, balding man’s big, wooden maul. But then Danos’ attacker screamed and dropped his maul, his mouth and nose pouring out a torrent of blood; he fell to his knees and then onto his face, the haft and part of the blade of a throwing axe standing out of his back. Danos looked about for the man who had thrown the axe—and saw a sight which froze the blood in his veins.